Nothing much happening today. Woke up and really could go for an omelette, but Nelda's is a thirty minute walk. My plan was "Go to Nelda's, eat. Shop at Vons. Go to Pizza Factory, eat. Check out hardware and surplus store. Nap, pack, sleep."

That didn't happen. Eat, shop, eat? A bit too much eating. I decided to just replan the days up to Mammoth, looked at the weather (thunderstorms early in the week, probably decent next weekend), and did laundry so it could dry in the afternoon when I was out.

It was sunny and hot, maybe in the mid 80s, when I headed out for the mile walk over to Vons. It's a really decent supermarket, and I was able to find all my staple resupply foods: Knorr pasta sides, Clif bars, instant coffee. I found Nido powedered milk, but it was in a 5 pound can; that's just a bit too much. I also got some fruit, apples and oranges and bananas. I really miss fruit on the trail, the starchy dinners and Clif bars can get old after awhile.

After Vons I thought I'd just hang out at the Pizza Factory for awhile, doing some writing and slowing devouring a pizza. I got my favorite pizza, BBQ Chicken, which was OK but missing onions and a touch of cilantro, sat down in a corner table well away from the other half-dozen people, and enjoyed writing for awhile.

About an hour later a group of seniors walked in, all dressed in their Sunday best, and rearranged the tables in the middle of the room to make a long table that could seat a dozen. They browsed the salad bar, ordered pizza, and started discussing their grandkids and the church service in that hard-of-hearing kinda too loud voices. Kinda charming in that small town sort of way.

That charm went away real quick when the conversation veered suddenly into a loud and unChristian discussion about another religious group. It was shocking--as they all nodded their head in agreement, they discussed in that "It's well known their type are greedy" and "Some people say that the Devil keeps them around to do his work, and the Devil prevents them from accepting Jesus" and "They're just confused spiritually". There were even more slurs that really shouldn't be repeated. It was blatantly disgusting, especially as the restaurant filled up with families for lunch. Finally someone went over and asked them to please change the topic as it was very unsettling to them, and they went back to chatter about grandkids. Yuck, this was not one of Lake Isabella's classiest moments.

On the way back to the motel, I stopped at True Value hardware and browsed their camping section--yay, a nice blue foam pad! That'll go nicely under my regular sleeping pad for below-freezing temps, or if I camp on snow. When I got back to the room, I cut it down into two squares, then packed away my laundry and took a nap.

The evening was filled with not much--the usual going through pictures, looking at maps and elevation profiles, packing stuff away, going through my food bag for empty wrappers, making sure batteries were fully recharged, eating a couple of slices of leftover pizza and a banana and an orange and half a bag of Doritos and a bag of baby carrots and a Clif bar. I'm still not feeling the Hiker Hunger, but I'm eating a lot. The nap was good, but it kept me awake far later than I wanted, and I didn't fall asleep until after 10:30.